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When the Red Hot Chili Peppers strode on to the Reading Festival main stage on Saturday night, it was the band’s fourth time at the festival – and their fourth time as a headline act. In 1994, when they made their Reading and Leeds debut, the Americans rockers were already comparative veterans, with five albums under their belt, including the acclaimed 1991 Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and over a decade’s experience in the music world.

Twenty-two years on, they’ve undergone a fair a few changes. Guitarist John Frusciante has left the band, twice, and was most recently replaced in 2009 by Josh Klinghoffer. They’ve also, inevitably, aged, and abandoned some of the hedonism of their early days: lead singer Anthony Kiedis is now a lean, tattooed 53, as is bassist Flea, who leaps about the stage with all the energy of his bloodsucking namesake.

That said, not everything is different. The band are still singing their hits: catchy, guitar-driven songs about drugs, sex, and California (no prizes for guessing which state they hail from). They’re still derided by “real” music-lovers for being too bland. And at this year’s Reading festival, they were the act that everyone was desperate to see.

It wasn’t the world’s most experimental set: there was only a smattering of material from their new album The Getaway (single Dark Necessities stood out), and a few longer drum and guitar solos. At times, the band seemed a little too relaxed and lacking in urgency.

Ultimately, however, this didn’t really matter. The Chilis' deceptively clever-sounding raps and ridiculous, often meaningless rhymes (from “California, show your teeth/Simul-tane-eous release” to “First born unicorn/hard-core soft porn”) can feel like Shakespeare when screamed in unison by an adoring crowd. And no matter how many times you've heard them, their more melodic choruses and songs, such as the artfully jaded Californication, Under The Bridge, and tenderly vulnerable Scar Tissue, are all but irresistible when sung, as if directly to you, by a microphone-cradling Kiedis.

The overall mood was one of chilled affection. When Flea told the crowd he wanted to go on one of the festival's on-site funfair rides and “vomit on everyone", it felt vaguely loving. Towards the end of the performance, a young girl (the bassist’s daughter, judging by her apparent age and the hug she gave him) came out on to the stage and sweetly, neatly performed a backflip, for no apparent reason. The crowd screamed.

The Chili Peppers (white, aging, rockers) will never feel like a ground-breaking festival headliner. But they’re still a reliably enjoyable one: around long enough that everyone knows all the words to all their hits, just about rare enough on UK shores to still feel like a novelty, and professional enough to deliver a great evening’s entertainment. Yes, these aging Chilis might be a little shrivelled, but they still pack some nicely mellow heat.